The present invention addresses problems caused by wireless security systems that are located in close proximity to other wireless security systems of the same design and operating frequency from the same manufacturer. As the development of these systems progresses, the effective range of the transmitter/receiver combinations also has increased dramatically. While increased effective range of the transmitters improves the reliability of the communications, it can also increase the reception of unwanted signals from nearby security systems. In a condominium or townhouse complex, for example, the housing units are typically clustered together. As the number of identical wireless alarm systems installed in these units increases, the amount of unwanted signal traffic that each system receives also increases.
In the current implementations of security systems, the wireless receiver and control panel are connected using a communications bus. As more unwanted signals are received, the amount of traffic on the bus increases, as well as the number of messages that must be processed by the control panel. The situation is compounded when a system has more than one receiver module. Even though a control panel will discard any message from a transmitter that is not enrolled in its memory (i.e. “learned” by the control panel during initialization or installation of the system), the multitude of such extraneous messages that pass through the receiver modules (since the have the same operating frequency and data protocols) to the control panel is problematic.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a wireless security system that overcomes the problems of the prior art mentioned above.
It is also an object of the present invention to provide such a security system that ameliorates the unwanted processing requirements on the control panel due to nearby transmitters that are not part of the system.
In particular, it is an object of the present invention to provide such a security system that can process the received messages at the receiver module and pre-filter the messages that did not originate from an enrolled transmitter, so that such unwanted messages are not passed on to the control panel.